The Devil Wears Prada cutie Emily Blunt gives the British monarchy some sass with her take on Queen Victoria, that emblem of all things industrial revolution and dour. Director Jean-Marc Vallee’s period piece doesn’t quite take Victoria’s story to that stage of intensified labor and earth-shattering mechanics, but it certainly lays down the foundation. The film follows the sheltered and naive teenager Victoria as she courts anyone and everyone who’d like a piece of her crown, including her mother, the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany), and her cousin and eventual husband, Prince Albert (Rupert Friend). It’s a romance at heart but one mired by pomp, ceremony and politics.

Most costume dramas are just that: soap operas that boast big, lavish dresses and copiously decorated sets that compete for attention, so that when the characters fail to grab you, the scenery will. The Young Victoria is at once all of those things and none of them precisely because while the director pays attention to the finer costume and set details, he refuses to allow the background to swallow the foreground.

Exquisite silks don’t trump the romance. The characters don’t bow to golden rooftops. Instead, Vallee lovingly follows his queen, Emily Blunt, who as Victoria embodies everything that has come to be known as the Victorian era. She’s the whip-smart heroine straight out of a Jane Austen novel, turning her caboose to class lines while moving onward like a locomotive (that most Victorian symbol of progress) toward secularism, industrialism and most important of all, feminism.

The plot doesn’t deal with such revolutions so much as Blunt’s equally charming and fierce performance, painting Victoria as someone who can play the fairer sex but who is surprisingly determined to beat the odds, whether in politics or romance.

Vallee’s spectacular debut C.R.A.Z.Y. showed far more passion and depth than what’s on display here. The plot is royally thin and the movie is over before you’re done with it. The director has crafted a women’s picture catered to tug at your date’s Kleenex -- consider it bonus points for what comes after the movie.

However, none of these are reasons to dismiss The Young Victoria. Vallee has a visual flair that makes the mundane -- panning shots of wine glasses or the Queen’s stone-faced guards -- sparkle with liveliness. And Victoria’s romance is no mere fumbling in the bushes, but intriguing political warfare. Every suitor represents some sort of national alliance. Every flirtation has a tactical agenda in this romantic chess game and it’s enough to get even the guys rooting for love.